security--to repress alike the vices of
the convicts, and the growing malversation of their taskmasters. The
want of prisons, or places of punishment, and the indolence and
intemperance of emancipist settlers, endangered authority.

In 1800, the transportation of the _defenders_ from Ireland, appears to
have created continual anxiety: a committee of officers was formed to
examine persons suspected, when Harold, a priest, was arrested, and
accused his fellow prisoners. His testimony was insidious, and
discredited; but the alarm led to the formation of a volunteer company
of a hundred persons, who armed for the suppression of rebellion. The
more distrusted of the Irish prisoners were conveyed to Norfolk Island;
there, some months after, a conspiracy was detected to massacre the
officers, and seize the island. On the night fixed for action, the plot
was discovered. An Irish servant, muttering words of compassion, was
overheard by his master: he was induced to explain, and was immediately
taken to Major Foveaux, the officer in command. The danger was imminent:
the warmth of the season (December) had tempted the soldiers to slumber
with open doors, and it was said that the sentinels were implicated who
that night kept watch. These being changed, and other precautions
adopted, the plotters postponed their design; and next day were marched
to church without suspicion. The door was beset with soldiers: the
leaders were arrested; one executed--and on the following day, the
blacksmith, charged with fabricating arms, was also hung. The necessity
for dispensing with the forms of law was not made out, and these summary
punishments were censured. That the danger was not imaginary, may,
however, be inferred from the after attempts at Port Jackson.

The military force of New South Wales, drawn together by a love of
adventure, or the hope of gain, when their own status was assailed, were
often exacting and severe: but they slightly sustained the moral
strength of the government. To select mistresses from the female
prisoners was one of their earliest and most valued prerogatives, who,
standing in this equivocal relation, became their agents and sold their
rum.

The Governor, after struggling to abate the abuses around him, yielded
to a pressure which seemed irresistible. He endeavoured to mollify by
his liberality, those he could not govern by restraint: he multiplied
licenses for the sale of rum, and emancipists aspired to commercial